As vaccine cards are issued and COVID masks come off in our neighborhood — not that masks were ever fully on or that everyone has acquired a card — we can move about the country in a more unrestrained manner. I use the word, “our,” because, we still can’t get into Canada except by special permission. Travel overseas is possible, but the hoops are many and convoluted and each country has its own rules about the proper response to COVID-19. Eighteen months after it reared its head, nobody knows yet quite what to do with the coronavirus.
The good news.
The good news is that we appear to be moving beyond the worst of the pandemic. The bad news is that we still don’t quite understand how the virus works or what it might mutate into. And, some folks still insist that it doesn’t really exist, even after the next door neighbors ended up in the hospital — or the morgue.
What we do know is that it affects those who get it in radically different ways. It has killed or made critically ill millions of people world-wide — more death that those of both World Wars, our Civil War and most of the “little” wars that have been or are still being fought since Korea. Yet, many millions more cases went unreported because the symptoms were minor enough to be written off as a cold, or, in the case of many third-world populations, there was no health care system to report it to. I suspect that thousands of cases in the US were not reported — even critical ones — because the infected could simply not afford to get care. Or they couldn’t bring themselves to admit that COVID-19 was actually a real thing.
In my case, I got it from God knows where, isolated myself for a couple of weeks, recovered without suffering, and got my sense of smell back. I also got vaccinated, one shot in each arm about three weeks apart, so now I have that imbedded mini-micro-chip that lets Big Brother and the Cabal know where I am at all times. Maybe even two of them. Who knows? I mean besides Big Brother and his minions.
In my case, I will defend myself against this tracking system simply by being a compliant citizen of the world. I don’t have a huge stock of arms and ammunition with which to defend myself against the Cabal — or the uprising of the rabble. As a matter of fact, I might be part of the rabble, myself. I still think the Constitution is a great document, even though interpretation of the 2nd Amendment by the NRA and its minions is egregiously erroneous. I mean, where is this “well-regulated militia” all of us citizens bearing arms are supposed to provide for. There seem to be quite a few varieties of militia out there, but they don’t appear to be very well-regulated. In fact, I suspect that if the most apocalyptic dreams of some militias come true, they will consume each other in battles for control of what’s left of the civilized world.
The meek shall inherit the earth.
Though many of Jesus’ words have been convoluted and twisted around by power-seekers and charlatans, he still had some really good things to say. He never flew the “Don’t Tread On Me” flag, though, and I don’t think if he were to come back today, he would go to North 40 and buy himself an AR-15 or three. I also don’t think he’s coming back today or any time soon. But he did say something I find appropriate to our times: “The meek shall inherit the earth.” If the end of the world as we know it really comes, when the overly-aggressive and the paranoid get done with each other, the rest of us will still be here. That’s what I think.
Sandy Compton’s newest book, The Dog With His Head On Sideways, is available in local bookstores or online exclusively at bluecreekpress.com/books Take that, Amazon!